Development Workshop’s director Allan Cain presented a paper and PowerPoint presentation at the Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty in Washington DC titled ‘Participatory Inclusive Land Readjustment in Huambo, Angola’, authored by Allan Cain, Beat Weber and Moises Festo. The authors argue that despite a rather challenging environment, land readjustment in Angola has the potential to become an important tool for urban planning. It shows that, while there is still no legal framework for land readjustment and a very limited culture of participation in urban planning processes, growing land markets and strong private sector partners can make land readjustment a viable option for local governments.
The first case study was completed before the reforms were implemented. It demonstrated how land readjustment could reduce conflicts by regularizing tenure status, how market mechanisms created land value that benefitted former occupants, new owner-builders, and the state; and the crucial role of social mobilization and government buy-in to secure success. The second case implemented after the reforms shows that the loss of financial control and the opportunity to mobilize the land market to create value meant that the project did not generate sufficient resources to sustain itself.
The authors support the decentralization program. However, they conclude, that municipalities require enhanced administrative capacity and the possibility of generating their own financial resources through transaction fees and taxes. Income from the regularization of land tenure may be one of the ways that municipalities can sustain themselves in the future.
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